Well car went in to menzies at bmw stirling for an mot and to get pads replaced.......... well to cut a long story short i now have a bill of £1500 quid !!!!!! the rear off side has a crack in it and is an mot failure and are running the bridgestone run flats , turns out loads of people have this problem and is a common fault with these wheels the dealer has quoted me £458 + vat per wheel im not keen on paying that price and was thot of maybe putting an aftermarket csl reps on but the dealer told me that if i was to do this then i would have problems with the ABS warning lights coming on on the dash so i guess what im askin is....... if anyone on here has had experince with this? or is the dealer just trying to get me to buy a new wheel ? ive seen alloys being welded on tv and could i not just get someone to weld the wheel? and didnt know if to start an arguement with bmw about this as this is obviously a manufacturing flaw either in the metal tape within the run flat tyre or within the alloy its self ...who knows , any help or advice is more than welcome cheers gareth

This is an old and well established problem. If you would care to read the last few pages of this sticky thread you will read what has been happening recently.

The dealer is trying it on with you because you don't know about it. They use a "run-out" test to establish if your wheel has been seriously kerbed - which would cause the crack. Now of course, if the wheel is cracked it is most likely going to fail this test so, usually, BMW accept a replacement wheel when there are no obvious signs of outward damage.

How old is the car? How many owners? Obviously, the older the car and the more previous owners it has had, the harder it is to prove that someone didn't abuse the wheels in the first place but the dealer knows about the Watchdog programmes and knows fine well that cracked wheels were and are pretty common. You need to push him a bit but if the cracked wheel has had signs of previous resprays, it will be harder.

thanks for the input on here guys , dirty bastards leading me up the garden path by the sounds of things ! ill be demanding a run out test to be carried out on the faulty wheel in the morning before running about and finding another wheel or another set of csl reps , i bought the car from them aswell !!! what a joke ! , so if i have hit a pot hole then i have still to pay for this out of my pocket ? i have hit many a pothole and have never had an alloy crack on me , this has to be a manufacturing error no? cheers gareth

I had two crack on me at different times, had them replaced by the dealerships as a "goodwill" gesture, had to argue a little tho.
Iv changed to non run flats and not had a problem since. Been running on non runflats for almost two years